Embrace the Extra: Organic Coffee Actually Makes Huge Difference

As the first of my “extra” series, you can guess by the title of the series that I’m sharing some habits, products and things that some people of our generation would call "extra", but 1) who cares & 2) that I have personally found to be essential. Worth the money, worth the effort, worth the *oh no* being labeled extra because they help me feel my best self.

If you know me at all, you know I’ll never buy into BS, but I do have an incredibly open mind and curious spirit that has led me to realize that some little things in life make a really big difference in how you feel day to day...that’s essential to feeling balanced in a busy life!

So let’s talk coffee! Aka what my veins have been filled with since 13 (too early ikik but I’m Swedish soooo). Prior to two months ago, Starbucks was my life line. I could have been their spokes woman. My social media fam remembers the days of pant-less trips through the Starbucks drive through before 6:30 am getting amped off black cold brew coffee. But as of 2 months ago, I've purchased a coffee from there maybe...twice? And with regret...

No, I wasn’t banned because of no-pants LOL, I developed a sensitivity to caffeine...a pretty bad one in fact as a result of a heavy a*s dose of antibiotics that you already know I didn’t want to take.

Long story short, my gut-microbiome was majorly disrupted and I became highly sensitive to coffee all of a sudden. A trip to Starbucks for a cold brew slowed my breathing, made me sweat and broke me out like crazy...what.the.hell. I know...!

So, felt forced to give up coffee all together for sake of relief from symptoms for a couple weeks though it was incrediblely difficult to let go of such a big part of my daily rounitne. After so many years of starting my day a certain way...with a certain taste, I legitimately felt sadness...imagine your FAVORITE food or drink suddenly stopped away from you indefinitely...?!? Yeah not a fun idea. So, me being me was determined to find a way—decaf maybe?

I was SHOCKED when decaf actually made me feel WORSE than caffeinated coffee! What was going on...? I certainly wasn’t allergic to the caffeine then...right?

Well one day, I was leafing through some old class materials and found a sheet about the "dirty dozen" AKA the foods with the worst concentrations of pesticides & coffee made the list!

HA!! This sent me into crazy nerd mode as I spent hours researching everything I could about coffee...learning about the nasty pesticides and mytotoxins that are very common in coffee..

What I discovered is that it’s pretty well known in the health community that regular coffee, the kind ya get from your fave coffee shop or just brewed at home most likely has mytotoxis AKA mold. Yep. MOLD. And turns out many people's sensitivity to coffee or even tea is not due to the caffeine, but the mold!

This isn’t white, thick mold that you are probably imagining because obviously we’d be able to see that. Instead, this mold manifests as a bunch of very small spores that grow as the coffee sits for months, as it often does, before you drink it. Combine the mold with the pesticides of non-organic and no wonder so many people breakout, get headaches and brain fog hours after drinking coffee!! 😂😱

Soooo, I basically ran to Trader Joe’s and picked up a box of their organic Colombian roast to give it a test.

No breathing restriction. No sweating. No red face. No new zits the next morning !!!

I was sold.

Now, am still sensitive to caffeine in large quantities (stupid antibiotics) so I only drink about 1/2-1 cup a day-- but all the other weird, uncomfortable symptoms are gone!

So, even if you don't have as an extreme reaction to caffeine as I did...maybe you just get overly gittery, or breakout, or get a headache, don't SETTLE! Be extra for the sake of your health & mood-- try organic coffee!!

Yes that means no more Starbucks runs and a little extra caffeine planning, but at the end of the day, I’m all about optimizing my balance which means the cumulation of my mood, my energy, my productivity, my health status... If things that I have control over in my life are throwing me off, HELL, I don’t care if Starbucks rule the world, imma do what I need to do to fuel my female fire.

Cheers to going organic ;) and yes, I’m extra and proud!

P.S. I'd love to hear if any of ya'll try this. Tell me if you feel a difference :)